Just Put the Phone Away

I’ve always believed that advice is best when it is affirmed by someone else – like a ‘second opinion’ or whatever but I definitely appreciate certain things better the second, third and seventeenth time around. For instance, yesterday I found this quote on Gretchen Rubin’s blog but it is something that my good friend Ryan used to beat me over the head with all the time. ‘Angie, do not look at your phone. Angie, you do not need to be accessible ALL the time. Angie, let it go to voice mail’. I always believed Ryan was right but there’s this part of me that knows everyone knows that I am accessible all the time. We live in a world where everyone has a smart phone and everyone is connected all the time. Even my father has an iPhone that I’m sure he doesn’t know how to use but he could if he wanted to…

Last week Andrea Scher wrote an article about the moment after you’ve sent someone a text or E-mail or voice mail and you don’t get an instant response. That “Oh, my gosh, they must be mad at me. Oh, I did this wrong. Or that wrong”. Yeah, sometimes maybe you did but most of the time they just haven’t responded and we’ve have worked ourselves into a frenzy over nothing. I loathe this about myself. I hate hate hate that I do it. I’ve gotten better but occasionally it still happens and when it does I have to take a deep breath and control the only thing that I can control. Me.

Yesterday I was super grateful for Gretchen’s post because it reminded me that this constant availability does in fact make it hard to truly connect with people. So many misunderstandings take place through E-mail and text messages that would never happen if I were actually talking to the person. Sometimes I feel like all I do is apologize for things I didn’t mean to “say”. I’ve also noticed through my on-line dating extravaganza that nearly everyone has lost the ability to spell, use punctuation and properly communicate. And, yes, I’m judging you hotlipz6969 on how many times you typed “LOL” in your profile cuz not everthang iz funny.

I’m trying to be better. I still text constantly. I e-mail more than I call and sometimes I still pray for the call to go to voice mail but when I’m with you I’m with you. My phone is in my bag or the other room or wherever and I’m mostlysometimeskinda okay missing the occasional text or phone call. And for the record no I’m not mad at you and I am not ignoring you.